Monday, July 24, 2006

It's been one week since my return from Australia. I have been sorely missed by the heat and the haze, both of which seem intent on smothering me to death with their fiery kisses. One week is also the ideal incubation period for social readjustment, and for recent experiences to settle in.

As I age, I have wisened up to the sad fact that my memory is not what it used to be. Or maybe I'm not trying hard enough. You see, I believe that the more emotionally involved you are in an experience, the higher your recall of it. Hence, the general failings of my memory may suggest that I have been a self-centred, bored prick all my life with a superficial sense of the present, thus resulting in a past that 'just happened'.

Even if I am proved wrong, time messes up the facts anyway. For instance, I remember being a smart and skinny kid, but if I were really that smart, I'd also probably be rich now... and still skinny. Hmm...

It is for these reasons—and alas, just in case I run out of happy thoughts in the future—that I have decided to devote some time and energy into journalling about my trip to Australia, which was a blast and would be a total shame to forget. And because I write at about one word per minute, plus minus a few seconds, most of the adventure will be rehashed in pictures.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

There I was, enjoying a wonderfully tender sausage at the Noosa Heads National Park in Queensland when suddenly, whoosh! a flash of white and grey swooped down, flapped for a microsecond in my face, then was gone. A second later, I realised that the kookaburra hanging about our picnic area had stolen the sausage from right out of my fingers! Crafty little bugger. Luckily, he was very accurate and I was not injured.

It also gave me an excuse to have another sausage, which I gulped down in a hurry.